Latino Voters Save Senate for the Democrats

As pundits sift through the data to make sense of what happened last night, this much is clear: Latino voters delivered.

In the history of other “wave” elections, Democrats have seen a pattern of losing majorities in both the House and the Senate. However, not this year; thanks to the Latino firewall in the West – motivated perhaps by some candidate’s views on immigration and some smart voter mobilization efforts – the Democrats were able to keep control of the Senate, not to mention the Governors’ races in California and Colorado.

According to the election eve polling which was conducted in eight states (AZ, CA, CO, FL, IL, NM, NV, TX), Latinos voted for Democrats over Republicans by roughly 75%-25%, or in other words, a three to one margin. This means that overall, Latino immigrant voters (foreign-born, now naturalized citizens) supported Democrats by even larger margins.